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History of the Internet

1962 – J.C.R. Licklider (1915-1990) introduced the idea of an ‘Intergalactic Network: His idea involved a global computer network that allowed everyone to access information from anywhere in the world. He became head of Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA/APRA), convincing his successors of the importance of the network.

1965 – MAILBOX was the first email system. It was first used at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1972 – Ray Tomlinson – invented the addressing the email message. Tomlinson worked for Bolt Beranek and Newman as an ARPANET contractor. He chose the @ symbol from the keyboard to denote sending messages from one computer to another.

1974 – Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn used the term “Internet” in a Transmission Control Protocol (TC) paper.

1976 – Dr. Robert Metcalfe invented Ethernet, Coaxial Cables that quickly transport data. Ethernet was an important aspect in developing Local Area Networks (LAN), which is a computer network that covers a small area, like a home, office, or school.

1978– Gray Thuerk sent the first spam email to 400 users of ARPANET advertising his DEC’s new range of minicomputers.

1981 – BITNET and CSNET networking projects were initiated. BITNET adopted the IBM RSCS protocol suite and featured direct leased line connections between participating sites.CSNET was initially funded by the NSF to provide networking for univeristy industry and government computer science research groups.

1983 – On January 1, 1983, every machine connected to ARPANET was required to use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol over Internet Protocol). This became the core of the Internet.

1984 – Dr. Jon Postel described his idea for .com, .org, .gov, .edu, and .mil in a series of papers published by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

1985 – Dennis Jennings joined the National Science Foundation and determines that TCP/IP should be mandatory for the entire NSFNET program.When Steve Wolff took over a year later, he determined that the academic/research community needed a something outside of government funding. They would need a Wide Area Network (WAN), which connects LAN.

1987 – CompuServe accidentally released the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) image, not knowing there was a patent pending on the technology.BITNET and CSNET merged to form the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN).

1989 – The World, an Internet Service Provider (IS), offered the first commercial dial-up internet. Netom, which was established in 1988, did not serve the public until The World, also founded in 1989, Panix was the third ISP.

1992 – Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN) released the World Wide Web. NSFNET is upgraded to 44.739 Mbps.

1993 – Marc Andreessen, NCSA, and the University of Illinois developed “Mosaic for X,” a graphical interface for the World Wide Web. Mosaic was the first widely used internet browser.Marc Andreessen later founded Netscape in 1994. His company also developed Secure Socket Layer (SSL), which encrypts and secures sensitive data. It’s still the standard today.

1994 – Pizza Hut offered online ordering through their website.

1995 – Pierre Omidyar released AuctionWeb, which later became eBay.The NSA, overwhelmed with new hosts, determined that as of April 30, 1995, they would no longer allow access to the NSF backbone. Instead, four providers could lease access. An annual fee was imposed for all domains, except those used by the government (.gov) or educational institutions (.edu).

1996 – Internet2 is released. Internet2 is a network of research and educational institutions.Hotmail is launched. Microsoft bought hotmail for $400 million the following year.

1998 – Google receives funding from Andy Bechtolsheim (Sun Microsystems) becoming Google Technology Incorporated.Paypal is formed to make it easy for consumers to spend money online.

1999 – Wi-fi, wireless internet technology, is standardised.Sean Fanning created and released his infamous Napster. He was 18.

2000 – The Dot-Com bubble burst, falling drastically after peaking at 5,048.62 on the NASDAQ.

2001 – Wikipedia is launched eventually changing domains from .com to .org.

2003 – Apple launched the iTunes Store with only 200,000 songs. Within 24 hours they’d sold a quarter of million songs.

2004 – On April 1, 2004 Google announced the launch of Gmail, which would offer 1GB of storage. Because Hotmail and Yahoo were only offering 2MB and 4 MB respectively, some people thought it was an April Fool’s Joke